A Fool's Phenomenology

[rva_jeremy]

One more thing: As Gary can probably tell you, the archetypes has been the area of most interest to me since I first read the Law of One material. But they're also one of the most frustrating parts because, given that Ra had little time to dive very deep into them at all, they're largely an open book. This means that anybody's say is as good as another's, and I've found it very hard to discuss or study them in a group setting. It's too hard to at once apply a light touch to this very delicate subject while at the same time engaging in the group conversational dynamics, the disagreements, the difficult work of translating from thought to words. In fact, it almost feels like the very act of assembling a single interpretation of the archetypal pantheon into a concept the mind can grasp is to lose their value in the first place, because a concept digested to satisfaction is a concept that can be safely considered finished and easily put away to ossify and stop expanding.

What I think is most heartening to me about A Fool's Phenomenology is the way Tyman seems to completely avoid these pitfalls. First of all, just witnessing somebody ideate on this to completion -- to the extent that words and thought can be a complete treatment of this subject -- is revelatory. Conversation may just not be the right way to do the archetypes, I think, because that stresses a verbal structure and consensus amongst two people who should perhaps have a much more visceral, personal relationship with this study. Letting a single part of the creator have a complete say on this, right or wrong, is refreshing, and allows the points to grow from pithy observations and statements too sweeping or subtle to be meaningful in their own right into a whole work that takes a while to grok, but rewards that time well.

Secondly, this is discussion of archetypes that is anchored to something that sits in between waking material consensus reality and the platonic aethers of pure thought. The solution here is to speak in the first person, to speak from the self, as a "confession" to be contemplated rather than as a concrete concept fully formed to be accepted or rejected. It does not try to convince you of anything, and yet it makes claims nevertheless that resonate. You're not being taught the archetypes; you're along for a ride. If you grow in your appreciation for the archetypal mind, it will not be because Tyman made any one argument you found irresistible. It will be because, having walked a mile in the shoes he wore, you find yourself walking with a slightly different gait.

Also, Tyman is a great writer. Is this a hard book to read? Yes. Is this a hard thing to write about? Hell yes. But in a way, all the energy I put into understanding the words lulls the rational mind to sleep. Something else happens in the interstices.

5 stars, would buy again.